Le crème de la café racer

It’s taken the world by storm, but just how does Tri­umph’s beau­ti­ful new Thrux­ton R stack up against the com­pe­ti­tion? We let it off the leash in Portugal with it’s clos­est ri­val, BMW’S phe­nom­e­nally suc­cess­ful R ninet, and one of the old­est bikes in the class Yamaha’s re­cently tweaked XJR1300. Can the new wa­ter-cooled Thrux­ton out-retro the air-cooled com­pe­ti­tion?